Roko’s Bath Fall Just Short

Army winger Samesa Rokoduguni (Royal Scots Dragoon Guards) played for Bath in the AVIVA Premiership Final at Twickenham on 30 May.

In a high octane match a couple of ‘slips’ early on allowed Saracens to take a 12 points advantage that Bath was unable to claw back. Saracens won 28pts—16.

Out on the wing opportunity was scarce. Nevertheless Roko had a couple of thundering runs. He might have scored a great individual try after a classic ‘step’ followed by a ‘chip’n sprint’ . He was away and the ball was in mid-air when he was shamelessly taken out on the ‘22’ by England full back Alex Goode.

‘Oops Sorry’ obstruction seemed to be a Saracens strategy. Bath’s England international Antony Watson suffered a similar injustice when ‘inadvertently clobbered’ around the neck by Owen Farrell and had to leave the field.

The Roko incident should have been a Red Card and, with Roko clear to the line, a penalty try.

Seven points at that stage should have swung the game Bath’s way but the referee continued to read the wrong runes. He penalized Bath at successive scrums for ‘collapsing’.

When will these referees learn to leave alone that which they do not, and never will, understand. Few referees comprehend the mechanics of the scrum collapse and a succession of 3 pointers is an injustice that leads to an unbalanced match and wrong result.

I agree with the Sunday Telegraph in that Roko, with an 8/10 rating, had an excellent game feeding off scraps but in a one-line analysis the Saracens forwards rumbled and rampaged, controlled their own lines-out and on occasion demolished the Bath scrum.